


The Phoenix Job

by Mizzy



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-11
Updated: 2011-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for leverageland, with cardboardcornea 's brilliant "Create an Episode" challenge result:</p><p>Title: The Phoenix Job</p><p>Summary: Maggie must rise from the ashes of a dead child and an ex-husband pushing himself to the edge. Reinventing herself is the one thing she has control over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Phoenix Job

There are five stages of grief.

Maggie Ford counts them silently out in her head, not that it would make a difference if she spoke them out loud; Nate's snoring is loud enough to- She inhales a breath too quickly, and it burns the back of her throat.  _Loud enough to wake the dead_  is how Nate used to say it, but it isn't, and it doesn't. ( _Maggie knows, she checked once, that first time that Nate downed Jim, Jack and Jose in one go, face stoic like ash and charcoal, and his nose crashed into the pillow like the Titanic to an Iceberg, and he snored like he was trying to wake heaven and hell, and she went straight to Sam's bedroom and it was empty, he was still gone_.) 

The Kübler-Ross model. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Maggie's been through them all, but not in that order. She's swooped through them sideways and upside down, at handfuls at a time, or one for extended suspended moments on a breath. Nate's stuck at denial, but that's no surprise. He's got seventeen steps to take, more than Maggie's five.

Even one seems too much right now.

But five steps, five small steps, those she can deal with. She can action plan her life around them, just like at work. Step one, denial, close your eyes, he's not gone. ( _He's out playing Hide and Seek with Nate, and my Sam's a genius, he's winning._ ) Step two, anger, that's not hard. ( _I hate you, this is your fault, they won't pay, we'll sell the house, I'll sell a kidney, why didn't you let me sell a kidney; oh, it's Nate, you're mad at Nate as well as the world, who knew, not you._ ) Step three, bargaining, that can't be difficult. ( _Take me not him take me not him take me not him TAKE ME NOT HIM_ ) Step four, depression, easy as. ( _and she's staring at the wall, the blue wall, so blue, Sam chose that blue-_.) Step five, acceptance, okay. ( _Nate is screaming and screaming and screaming and the doctor says I'm sorry and he's not coming back and Nate screams and screams and screams._ )

Five steps and she's a proper person again. Five steps to action, and she can construct a whole new her, who is okay and functioning and not sobbing every three minutes. Someone who can smile and flirt and live and not falter when buttering a slice of bread for a third sandwich that isn't needed any more. Someone who knows how to laugh. She can control that. She can become this person, someone who doesn't grieve with every breath, who wants every breath to stop so the grieving stops.

Maggie settles back into the bed, back stiff, counting Nate's snores, mentally picturing this new her. Maggie Ford- no, Maggie Collins ( _no point now being a Ford, Nate's world is decaying and she can't be capable in a world where the floor is still falling_ )- is going to be a bright, beautiful, capable person. 

She's going to be brave. And when Nate finished self-destructing, and their paths crossed in the future, and when their gaze met Sam would die in their arms in their minds-eye, Maggie would just smile and nod and they would part and Nate would never know how broken she still was, because her new self would be pure and light. 

Like her papa used to say before he died, sometimes being brave wasn't being a soldier or stopping a gun man or taking poison meant for a friend. Sometimes being brave wasn't risking your life to take down evil people. 

Sometimes being brave just meant waking up in the morning. 

Sometimes being brave just meant wearing a smile you didn't feel.

Maggie doesn't think she'll ever feel a smile again, but that's okay, she'll smile because she can control it. She can control how she smiles and how she presents herself to the world, and that's not enough, because Sam made  _enough_  into an incomprehensible idea, an unreachable goal. But if Maggie redefines less than enough as okay, then she's going to be okay.

She's going to be just fine.

It's all just a matter of changing the definition of what fine means, and changing enough of herself until she can't recognise what any of it used to be. If she changes fast enough, quickly enough, goes through the motions, no one has to know she's just as stuck in denial as Nate is. Not even she has to know. So she's going to follow her plan and close her eyes and rise from the ashes of her new life, and that's the great thing about Phoenixes - they're mythical creatures which no one knows how they're supposed to look. No one will be able to tell that this rising phoenix is too broken to function. 

Nate, in the future, will cloak himself in smoke and shadows. Maggie will clothe herself in smiles and sunshine. He'll think himself a master of disguise, but he just kids his Marks; Maggie will be kidding the whole world.

 _I win,_  is what she'll think to herself, and it's a broken kind of loss but that's okay - she's a broken kind of girl. Sam's broken phoenix. Free but forever burning.  _I win._


End file.
